One year anniversary report

[John C]

Well, here I am with the one year report. Bottom line; things are pretty good, with a high level of activity; however there are a lot more aches and pains around the surgery site than I had hoped for at one year.
Quick review: I had a very positive and comfortable experience with the surgery. I had a slow and painful next five weeks, but after that things progressed well, with pool and gym work for a couple of hours a day. At five months, I was doing mountain hikes with some trail jogging for 3-4 hours a day, along with some biking. At six  months, I started skiing hard for eight hours every day through the winter. A month ago, I started my daily summer schedule of waveskiing (cross between surfing and kayaking) for three hours in the mornings, and high wind windsurfing in the afternoons every day. When I started my summer schedule, I started having a lot of sharp pain around the greater trochanter (this was also my problem during those first few weeks after surgery), which was diagnosed as trochanteric bursitis. They put me back on Celebrex, which has calmed that down.
At one year, I am certainly much better off functionally than before surgery; limp is mostly gone. I am definitely not one of those people that can say that they are pain free, or no longer aware of their hip. Walking and climbing stairs still involve lots of little aches and twinges, and has been slow to improve since the six month point. I am not a flexible person, but that continues to improve, so that it is as good or better than my normal hip. I am still working on getting back to full strength in the new hip, and continue to see improvement.  I am still optimistic that this soft tissue pain will go away over the next year. 
So, thats my story at the end of the first year. I will check in again next year, or if there are any major changes. Good luck to all.

[stevel]

Hi John,

Congratulations on reaching your one year anniversary!  I am nearly at 8 months post-op (anniversary).  I have enjoyed reading your posts as you transitioned in activity from 5 1/2 months to one year.  I am also an avid downhill skier (age 55) and I waited until 6 months post-op before resuming. The ski season was nearly over so I didn't push it too much.  Lately I've been running and fast paced walking on the treadmill and I've been mulling about running outdoors.  I have almost no aches or pains after running, skiing, snowshoeing or hunting in mountainous terrain.  I believe my muscles, ligaments and tendons are OK.  I am being somewhat prudent about waiting a year for the bones to fully densify and heal before pushing it on the slopes.  Returning to sports, especially extreme sports, is a controversial subject as some Doctors say OK at 3 months while others say OK at 12 months.  Dr. Su says OK at 6 months but is prudent to say that he prefers his patients run on soft surfaces.  Dr. Gross says to wait a year before skiing the double black diamond slopes.  Heck, I never skiied the double black diamonds even when I was younger.  I do ski the single black diamonds.  Best wishes and I'm looking forward to your second year anniversary post.